Question about multiple websites in same field
-
I know what most people say that it is best to only have the 1 website for focus but if we can put this to the back of our minds, if we create 2 different websites that are totally different designs (one upmarket one and one targeting the cheaper market) but in the same fields (printing) and go after 80% of the same keywords is this ok (could we be penalized).
Please note we will not be interlinking the websites, the website .will be on different servers and the names will be registered under different people (2 partners in the business).
We will however be accessing webmaster tools from the same location.
-
Nor would it help local search. This could be a major factor in deciding where to purchase heavy printed materials.
-
Hi Bob,
In Cases like this, I take a step back and think is this being deceptive, is this already occuring on the web? The answer is no its not deceptive and yes its already happening in business today. I am sure there is an example where Google themselves are trying to capture top and bottom ends of the market (insert example here), but I'll give you this one.
In Australia a company called Coles Myer have two supermarket chains Coles and Bilo which capture the mid-to-top end and budget end of the supermarket market. They are shown as two completely separate companies, but I'm sure in an obscure about us page are still listed as part of the Coles Myer group.
The moral of my story, run both but ensure almost all aspects of the site are unique. Separate themes, separate dev teams, unique content, separate hosting etc. They should be seen to have been created by two separate teams to ensure success.
Hope this helps,
Dan
-
It's not something you'll be penalized for, but you may find it naturally harder to build value for a second site. Which one do you list on your business/directory/social profiles? Which one would you refer customers to? or tell someone else to link to you with? It's easy to wind up diluting your efforts. Not saying you shouldn't do it, but just make sure you're confident it's worth your while, and obviously rewrite content and you should be fine.
-
Accessing Webmaster tools from the same location won't be an issue otherwise there are lots of agencies that would have problems when carrying out work for different clients in the same or similar niches. You are essentially operating both your sites as stand alone and there is nothing that is connecting them, so having two sites in the same niche should be fine. Just make sure that you write unique relevant content for each. Up until the end of 2012 I worked on two sites that would both rank for certain keywords and I actually acknowledged the relationship between both sites - having a link from one to the other and also having them on the same Google Account for analytics and webmaster tools. They had separate hosting but both were registered to the same company. One site was stronger than the other but there was no issue in terms of search engine rankings as the content was unique on each even if it was about the same or similar things.
Both had a legitimate reason for being there and I think Googles algorithm when it comes to things like attempted manipulation through link networks is cleverer than a lot of people give it credit for!
These are my thoughts and experience hope it is of some help...
-
Are you creating both websites under one company name or two?
The only reason I ask is that from a usability standpoint people may find it confusing.
Let's say a user visits your upmarket site, but does not contact you during that visit. Then they perform a Google search again looking for your company name and the stumble upon the cheaper market and don't find the same solution and the website now looks completely different... that might be confusing, unless you are using two different company names... and if that's the case, I would hope that the companies would actually be "legit" or it may seem deceptive.
That said... I don't think you would get penalized for creating two sites in the manner you are suggesting.
I do think it may become confusing if you rank for both pages on the same page of Google, because having different URLs, different designs, but the same company name may seem deceptive to users.
Just my thoughts.
Mike
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I define that one area of my website is a regualr news (no subscription) and the other part of the website is news that only subscribers can read?
Hi I have a client that have a news website, he asked me if he can define one area of his website to be a regular news that google can show on google news search results (no subscription) and the other part of the website is news that only subscribers can read? Thanks Roy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kadut1 -
Multiple H2 tags
Is it advisable to use only one H2 tag? The template designs for some reason is ended up with multiple H2 tags, I realise if any think it's that each one is that are important and it is all relative. Just trying to assess if it's worth the time and effort to rehash the template. Has anyone done any testing or got any experience? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman101 -
Problem with Google finding our website
We have an issue with Google finding our website: (URL removed) When we google "(keyword removed)" in google.com.au, our website doesn't come up anywhere. This is despite inserting the suitable title tag and onsite copy for SEO. We found this strange, and thought we'd investigate further. We decided to just google the website URL in google.com.au, to see if it was being properly found. Our site appeared at the top but with this description: A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more. We also can see that the incorrect title tag is appearing. From this, we assumed that there must be an issue with the robot.txt file. We decided to put a new robot.txt file up: (URL removed) This hasn't solved the problem though and we still have the same issue. If someone could get to the bottom of this for us, we would be most appreciative. We are thinking that there may possibly be another robot.txt file that we can't find that is causing issues, or something else we're not sure of! We want to get to the bottom of it so that the site can be appropriately found. Any help here would be most appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavo0 -
E-Commerce Panda Question
I'm torn. Many of our 'niche' ecommerce products rank well, however I'm concerned that duplicate content is negatively effecting our overall rankings via Panda Algo. Here is an example that can be found through quite a few products on the site. This sub-category page (http://www.ledsupply.com/buckblock-constant-current-led-drivers) in our 'led drivers' --> 'luxdrive drivers' section has three products that are virtually identical with much of the same content on each page, except for their 'output current' - sort of like a shirt selling in different size attributes: S, M, L and XL. I could realistically condense 44 product pages (similar to example above) down to 13 within this sub-category section alone (http://www.ledsupply.com/luxdrive-constant-current-led-drivers). Again, we sell many of these products and rank ok for them, but given the outline for how Panda works I believe this structure could be compromising our overall Panda 'quality score', consequently keeping our traffic from increasing. Has anyone had similar issues and found that its worth the risk to condense product pages by adding attributes? If so, do I make the new pages and just 301 all the old URLs or is there a better way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | saultienut0 -
A new website issue
Hello everybody,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtmaster
I have started a new website 22 days ago at the beginning of this month and i have long articles. I think this should make the site appear in search results for long tail keywords even if they are not very relevant but as you can see in the attached image from my webmaster tools the impression count has suddenly increased to 100 then significantly decreased again. Even when i cancel "filter" option. Is this normal for a 3 weeks old website? or there is something i have to check? thanks. cLMa04l.jpg0 -
Duplicate Content Question
Currently, we manage a site that generates content from a database based on user search criteria such as location or type of business. ..Although we currently rank well -- we created the website based on providing value to the visitor with options for viewing the content - we are concerned about duplicate content issues and if they would apply. For example, the listing that is pulled up for the user upon one search could have the same content as another search but in a different order. Similar to hotels who offer room booking by room type or by rate. Would this dynamically generated content count as duplicate content? The site has done well, but don't want to risk a any future Google penalties caused by duplicate content. Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CompucastWeb1 -
Multiple Versions of Pages on One Website
Hi! My name is Sarah and I work for a brand design firm in Los Angeles. Currently we're working on a website redesign for our company. We have three pages of content that we want to add to the site, but are unsure if we will get penalized by Google if we add all of them since they may come off as too similar? The pages are: Branding
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jawa
Personal Branding
Corporate Branding Does anyone know if our SEO will be penalized for having all three of these pages separately, or should we just focus on Branding, and include Personal Branding and Corporate Branding as sub categories on the page? Thanks! Sarah P.S. I should also say, we will have more than just the three aforementioned pages. It's going to be a big site with around 200+ pages. (Half of them being services, which is where the Branding, PB and CB pages will be located.)0 -
On Page question
HI folks, I have a warning that I have missing meta tag descriptions on two pages. 1) http://bluetea.com.au/wp-login.php 2) http://bluetea.com.au/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword Is this something I should just ignore? Or is there a best practice I should be implementing? Thank you for your time
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PHDAustralia680